


You're The Love I Know

by Melusine11



Series: Melusine attempts to fix it [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ahch-To, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin is meddling finally, Canon Compliant, Caves, F/M, Mirrors, No Pregnancy, Post-Canon Fix-It, Rescue, Road Trips, Travel, World Between Worlds, but by foot, canon lore but with a twist, if they can make up lore so can i, naked, porgs as clothes kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:34:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23164807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melusine11/pseuds/Melusine11
Summary: After Exegol Rey compartmentalizes and packs away the things that remind her of Ben and the things she has lost, but on a trip to Tatooine the man Ben had been trying to reach out to all his life shows up to talk Rey out of doing something stupid, and to break the brittle walls she’s built, sending her towards her destiny — one where Ben can come back.“Anakin Skywalker,” she speaks the name slowly, tongue rolling over every syllable.Anakin tilts his head, standing up and brushing at his knees. “Rey, your journey isn’t done. You and my grandson. You’re powerful, yes, but you exist in balance. Ben isn’t here.”Rey glances around the room and gestures, agitated. “Tell me something I don’t know,” she snarls.He winks, actuallywinksat her and then pops out of existence.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Melusine attempts to fix it [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1708846
Comments: 23
Kudos: 61
Collections: Reylo Charity Anthology: Volume 2, TROS Reylo Fix-it Fics





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written as part of the Reylo Charity Anthology - Volume 2. I am honored and humbled to be able to participate in this incredible fandom work for the second year in a row, and really have to salute the mods for their incredible work with the project.
> 
> A million thanks to meritmut who encouraged me to go on this wild adventure, and for being the first set of eyes on this. And a huge thanks to RebelRebel for being the second set of eyes and making sure I was talking sense when I was worried I wasn't anymore.
> 
>   
> 

“Really?” The voice startles her away from the clutter on the sandy counter she’s trying to clear away. “An entire galaxy and you land here?”

She turns to find him standing behind her, hovering just inside the doorway.

“I know you,” she says, squinting at him. “You were there, at the end.”

“Keeping you from doing something foolish, yes,” he agrees, stepping further inside, veering off to the left to look around. “Your journey isn’t done yet. I couldn’t let you pass into the Force, as much as you may have wanted to. Still do.”

She turns away from him, throat tight, and clumsily reaches for something to busy her hands. She knocks an already broken glass to the ground on accident. She’s been hiding it from everyone, even Finn, _especially_ Finn, and then to have this– this _ghost_ come in and flay her open so quickly. It smarts.

“I can’t believe you took my name and decided to come _here.”_

“What’s wrong with here?” she asks, curiosity getting the better of her, overriding her irritation. His presence comes closer, muted blue light finally entering her peripheral. “I thought it as good a place as any to honor them, lay them to rest.” She spreads her palm over the fabric holding the bundle containing Luke and Leia’s sabers.

The ghost shudders and groans. “I hate sand,” he starts and steps up beside her now, surveying the items she keeps fidgeting with. “Hate it. I hated it here, though my memories of it are hazy at best — at least the ones from when I was younger. Others– well,” he pauses. “Let’s just leave it there. I hate sand and if somehow my past self knew the saber he spent time building would one day end up buried deep in the sands of Tatooine–” Rey watches him now, the way his lips twist. “Irony is a bitch.”

Rey isn’t sure what to say, so she stacks the broken bits of everything up and pushes them to one side, and then stares at him as she gathers the covered weapons and slowly places them inside of her pack. A change of plans. “Anakin Skywalker,” she speaks the name slowly, tongue rolling over every syllable. 

“I’m not calling you Rey Skywalker.” His knowledge of a decision she hasn’t yet voiced to anyone yet stings. She had thought only she had heard, quietly whispering the names together in the safety of her cabin.

Pushing all of that aside she grins, a brittle fragile thing and points out, “You just did.” 

“Yeah, okay, you got me there, but in general.” He walks away then, settles on top of the table. “I can understand why you’re choosing it, I suppose, but it’s not the one you want.”

He sits there, quiet, watching her. Gaze equal parts intense and friendly. It’s her undoing. She has tried to box it up all neat and nice and put it away, far away until she can touch it again. Didn’t think it would be so soon. Her lip quivers and she shakes her head.

“No, it’s not.”

Anakin tilts his head, standing up and brushing at his knees. “It’s curious, that you haven’t asked about him at all.”

“More curious that you never reached out to him, when he was so desperate for it, but you’ve shown yourself to me twice now.” The anger in her voice bites through the air.

He looks affronted, and he’s quiet for a long time. “I wanted to,” he tells her, voice gone soft. “I wanted to tell him everything, to keep him safe and let him know who he was trying to be– he wanted Vader, not Anakin, and even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. Palpatine,” he says, ignoring her wince, “was powerful, in life, in false death. He corrupted me, and when he got his hands on Ben — Ben was younger, more malleable than I ever was, I couldn’t break through. It’s stopped now, but sometimes, when I would try to visit Ben, I could hear his laughter echo through the Force when I finally gave up.

“I can’t change the past, and Ben found his way just fine on his own. Maybe with a little help,” he tells her pointedly, “so we’re going to change the future.”

She gapes at him, mouth opening and closing and she’s sure she looks ridiculous, but he just smiles an easy smile. 

“You know, don’t you,” he says, stepping closer, drawing up to his full height, foreboding even as a ghost. Rey takes a step back, reaching for her staff. “You can’t fight me, you know that right?” he asks, still sounding amused. 

“We’ll see,” she answers. The beam of yellow light splits the air between them, it’s sister blade igniting seconds later. “Tell me.”

“Not very Jedi-like,” Anakin says with a disdainful sniff before smirking, “probably why I like you so much.” He waves a hand. “Put the weapon away, Rey, I only have so much time left and we need to discuss my grandson further.”

The glow and hum are gone in an instant. “Is he–”

“Wrong question.”

Rey huffs. “You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”

“How he is? If he’s playing nice with all the other ghosties?”

Rey stands there, waiting for more, but Anakin is just staring at her. “Well?” she eventually asks, growing frustrated.

“Oh, you’re in denial, I see. Tell me, Rey, you read all of those books, passed down through the lines of the Jedi, some written by my own son, heard what Ben said, you’ve been to Ahch-To, do you remember what was there, inside the temple?”

Rey frowns, mind working quickly to solve the question, to find her answer. “The mosaic?” she asks.

“What do you know about it?”

“It’s the Prime Jedi, the founder of the Jedi order, in perfect balance.”

“Close enough. The Jedi Order of old is not who the Jedi became. In the beginning, there was the acceptance of balance within oneself, not the twisted thing it became before Palpatine and I destroyed them all. Balance. The Force desires it, creates it. Was — for a fleeting moment — perfect.”

The silence stretches between them. He doesn’t need to say the words, but Rey knows them in her heart... _And then Ben died_.

“I can’t fix it,” she mourns, growing frustrated when Anakin smiles once more.

“Rey, I told you. Your journey wasn’t done. You and my grandson. You’re powerful, yes, but you exist in balance. Ben isn’t here.”

Rey glances around the room, gestures agitatedly at the hollow broken space around them. “Tell me something I don’t know,” she snarls.

Anakin rolls his eyes. “No, look deeper. Search your feelings, you know it’s true. The two of you share a bond — if that were truly severed you would both die or you would roam the galaxy with a wound so deep the pain of it would tear you apart before you would succumb. You would feel it in the Force. But you didn't then and you don’t now. You still feel whole.”

“No.” She grits out but focuses on the Force anyway. “I feel tired and angry and I miss him and I don’t–” she cuts off, blinking in wonder. “What– what is this?” It’s faint but there, a quiet pulse in the Force, in the space where Ben has lived since the day they met. So gentle and faint she gasps. “What did you do?” Her hands shake, mind and body torn between the urge to rail at Anakin and fall to her knees. Does Ben know how he’s failed her since Exegol? Not felt his presence there within her?

The faintly glowing Force ghost looks far too smug, and she decides she’ll make the time to see if her saber can slice through him before he starts talking again. “Me? Nothing. _The Force,_ though... you still have a lot to learn. Get your books.”

“I thought you were running out of time here.”

He winks, actually _winks_ at her and then pops out of existence.

She blinks at the space where he had been and then scowls. “It’s a Skywalker thing. This all makes more sense now,” she sighs with a resigned nod.

Later, after a quick turn in the sonic to scrub the sand from her body and touching base with Finn and Poe, she opens the drawer where she keeps the books and withdraws them before carefully tucking the sabers in the vacated space until she can find somewhere new. She spreads the tomes out on the floor and thumbs through them while BB-8 rolls around beeping questions at her.

It’s right there, scrawled onto the lower portion of the page. She picks up the book, pulling it close to her face. “Well, kriff,” she mutters, mind racing. It seems too ridiculous and too good to be true, but it’s all right there, and she’s missed it all this time.

She’s going to need to fix that compressor problem.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to RebelRebel for the beta!

“Can you pass me the– thanks!” Rose says, peeking over at Rey with a smile. “I feel like we should make a new title, ‘Commander of porg repairs’ or ‘General overseeing Falcon maintenance due to destructive porgs.’”

“Those seem like a mouthful,” Rey laughs, reaching for a coil of wire, unwinding it, working it to suit their needs.

“Yeah, but now look at this mess.” Rose gestures helplessly around at the clutter and exposed wires and the one lone porg that is plodding its way through their repair supplies.

They share a smile before laughing at the absurdity of it all. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Rose asks, after several minutes of quiet working.

“No,” Rey grits out, forearm wedged inside of the paneling of this ship, awkwardly poised to try and see what her hands are doing. A droid could be doing this, but she likes it. Get dirty, stay busy, keep her mind focused on other things.

“Okay. Well, you know I’m here if you ever change your mind. I know you won’t talk to Finn about it, after what he said, you know, when the news — and I totally get it. I can’t imagine — it’s honestly just bantha poodoo, that he would say something like that and not believe you.”

“Rose,” Rey sighs, finally getting a grip on the faulty component.

“Right, right, sorry. I just. I’m here, okay? No judgment. Ever.”

“Can you hand me the splicer?” Rey asks, muttering a quiet thanks when Rose passes it over, then she wedges her other arm inside of the gap. “Adjust the light?”

The two of them have been doing repairs on the Falcon and various other Resistance ships for over a year together now. They’re like a well-oiled machine when they work, always in tune with one another. 

Rey may have met Finn first, and loves him like he’s her brother, but she was there for Rose when the two of them fell out. Finn had Poe and was determined to throw himself into working harder for the Resistance, which left Rose alone. Which didn’t sit right with Rey. So she had invited her to help here on the ship. Rose knew all of the porgs already, had done a few minor external repairs on the Falcon — it only made sense.

Rey had listened while Rose had talked and worked through the loss of Finn as a lover, and nearly a friend. 

“When Force users die,” Rey begins, looking at what she’s working on. She can feel Rose still with anticipation — it’s been a week since she returned from Tatooine and Rey has refused to talk about it; all of it, really. “It’s not really death like most people expect. You pass into the Force if you want. Become one with it, the life and death and everything in between.”

“Like the General,” Rose whispers. Well aware of how her body had faded from existence. 

Rey nods as she continues to speak. “Yes. Like that. So they all still exist, their spirits, their _Force_. I’ve spoken to Master Luke, I’ve heard the voices of the other Jedi. But Ben,” she falters, twisting her hands, shoving the part harshly back into place and withdrawing her arms. She scoots back across the hall and pulls her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and resting her chin on the top of her knee as she looks over to Rose.

Rose’s voice is hesitant when she breaks the silence. “Is he not there? Because — because of what he had done before?”

“No,” Rey chokes out. “No. He– Ben made things right. I killed Kylo Ren.” Rey winces at the memory but carries on, “or, at least I gave him the choice to leave Kylo dead. Ben came back for me.” Rose scuttles over to sit next to Rey, pressing her body against hers and Rey sighs at the comfort it brings. Everything comes out then, everything. Not the edited series of events she’s been recounting that leave out who she is, that she had truly died. Rose reaches for her, takes a hand in hers when Rey tells her this, squeezes tight when she explains that Ben had somehow brought her back, and it had cost him everything. 

“Rey,” Rose begins gently, “didn’t you say if they _want_ to?”

“Yes. I didn’t explain it right. Some Force users can return, can manifest, but Ben just went _poof_. Even if– he’s not dead.” Rey insists. “If he died, I would have died again.”

“But if you died first why didn’t Ben also die? How was he able to bring you back?”

“I don’t know how the Force works. It does what it wants. Ben isn’t dead,” Rey insists.

“Rey,” Rose says, voice gentle and tinged with pity.

The urge to stand up and pace is strong, but Rose holds onto Rey with a vice-like grip and waits for Rey to speak. “He’s stuck somewhere. His grandfather told me.”

“What? When?”

“When I went to Tatooine. He showed up.”

Rey watches Rose take a deep breath from the corner of her eye and then nod slowly. “Okay. Okay, how do we do that?”

“I have a theory,” Rey starts, and by the time she’s done, they’re in her cabin on the ship surrounded by the texts while Rose pulls up a holomap to inspect.

Eventually, Rose is the one to break the silence. “So you think Exegol was a sort of waypoint to this place? The World Inside of a World?”

“World Between Worlds, yes.” Rey nods decisively. 

“Right, that’s what I said. So Exegol– and that’s how Ben — in your own words — went ‘ _poof’_? What did it do? Suck him inside?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay, well, we aren’t going back there. _You_ aren’t going back there, and if we look at the map…”

“Ahch-To.”

“Right. And you’ve been there. Any weird–” Rose wiggles her fingers. “Force things?”

“The entire island is full of weird Force things,” Rey answers with a small smile before growing serious. “There’s a cave beneath the island. When I was down there–” Rey shakes her head. “It was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I think — I think it might be an access point.”

“But what about this here?” Rose points, “and your obsessive mission to fix the compressor problem with the hyperdrive.”

“Lothal. There’s a temple there, and in the event that we can’t get out the way I came in, that’s the next closest gateway. You and Chewie, if he comes, will need to get there.”

“What if you end up somewhere else?”

“I’ll bring a tracker, activate it when we’re out if we don’t come out on Lothal.”

“This is crazy,” Rose tells her with a surprised laugh. “Absolutely insane, and I am going to help you. We’re going to do this, we’re gonna bring Ben back. I can’t wait to meet him.” 

“You don’t have to say that Rose, I know what the First Order did–”

Rose cuts her off with a smile as she grabs Rey’s hand. “The First Order. Not Ben, besides, he must be something special even without the whole soulmates thing for you to want to try and find him and bring him back.”

Rey tucks her chin into her chest. “He is, yeah.”

“Alright then. We’ve got work to do. First things first, though — it’s past lunchtime, and I am _starving_. Let's go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hi on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hellomelusine/)!
> 
> I'd like to say I'll be better at remembering to update this on a schedule, but I hardly know what day it is anymore, lol.


End file.
